1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a mobile terminal device, a terminal program, an augmented reality system, and a character item such as clothing.
2. Description of the Related Art
Printed T-shirts are T-shirts on which images of figures or motifs are printed as still images by using a processing technique such as silk screen. In recent years, the market is flooded with T-shirts, bags, or character items (may also be referred to as “character goods”) such as toys on which popular characters or popular animation for children are printed, and these items receive a good reception from children.
At the same time, because of the ever-increasing multifunctionality of mobile terminal devices, recently smartphones in the enhanced network communication environment for connecting to the Internet have been widely used in place of mobile phones. With a smartphone, the user can obtain application programs distributed in the market by downloading them. Accordingly, the user can customize his/her smartphone over a wide variety of genres as a tool for utility uses such as data management and text messaging, for practical uses such as weather forecast, public transportation transfer guide, gourmet guide, and navigation using satellites, for business uses such as a memo tool and business card management, for communication uses such as “Skype” (registered trademark) and “Twitter” (registered trademark), or for entertainment uses such as online games.
Hitherto, augmented reality (AR) technology that augments a real environment perceived by human beings by using a computer is known. For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2011-204047 introduces technology for appropriately changing an object image combined with an image representing the appearance of a real world in an augmented reality image.
As disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2011-204047, AR technology arranges figures with certain shapes, which are called markers and which are used to recognize three-dimensional positions, in a real world, and an image capturing device captures an image of the real world including these markers. Therefore, the markers are arranged in a configuration where they are subjected to perspective transformation in the captured image. Perspective transformation technology is applied to objects associated with the markers, and object images obtained with the captured image as the background are combined, thereby generating an augmented reality image. This AR technology makes it possible to reproduce computer graphics (CG) including moving images or still images.
If a collaboration of the above-described smartphones and character items such as T-shirts enables reproduction of an augmented reality image generated by combining a consumer with a stagecraft image associated with the design of a character item purchased by the consumer, that character item can gain added value. It is thus expected that more elaboration and promotion effects can be achieved. In realization of this collaboration and its effects, there is also a demand for easily reproducing an augmented reality image without using sophisticated perspective transformation technology.